GLASGOW's City Parking is to get a £750,000 council bailout after posting its fourth consecutive annual loss, The Evening Times can reveal today.

The firm was forced to call on the public purse because it hadn't even enough money to lay off its own workers in its latest round of cost-cutting.

City Parking has now lost £4m since the council set it up as a supposedly profit-making arm's-length external organisation or Aleo, in 2007.

The latest bailout – which will go to pay for early retirement packages – comes after the council agreed to lend the firm £1.25m in the autumn.

And earlier this month, City Council leader, Gordon Matheson, announced a free parking initiative for the city for the festive season, effectively a £105,000 shot in the arm for City Parking.

Today the SNP rounded on the what it called "astounding" losses at the Aleo, one of nine remaining from a controversial network created by Mr Matheson's predecessor, Steven Purcell.

Nationalist councillor Graeme Hendry said: "This is clearly an area that should be profitable but something seems to going wrong at the centre of this council to allow this to happen."

Council sources, however, claim City Parking faces the same financial pressures – including a huge national rise in business rates – as similar businesses.

City Parking runs several multi-storey car parks in the city centre - the kind of facilities once thought to be highly profitable.

But it is also responsible for on-street parking and enforcing parking fines, including towing away illegally parked cars.

That is a business many local authoritiesx are routinely accused of exploiting as a cash cow.

Edinburgh, for example, famously rakes in millions through its notorious "blue meanies" parking wardens.

But Glasgow loses money on its collection of parking fines.

As The Evening Times revealed last year, Glasgow sheds around half a million pounds a year in trying to enforce fixed penalties dished out to motorists - partly because fines remain relatively low but are expensive to administer.

A source said: "We are in the position where people are parking wherever they like and not paying the fine.

"We are talking about a city with Scotland's lowest car ownership effectively subsidising motorists, many from out of town, who don't pay for rogue parking."

The annual loss from parking enforcement is now being shouldered by City Parking.

A spokesman for City Parking today defended the latest bailout to pay for redundancy packages as part of "restructuring".

He said: "Like most other parts of the council family, City Parking is currently developing and implementing service reforms in order to make efficiencies - in this case, savings of £350,000 per year.

"This has involved offering staff early retirement and the council is providing up-front assistance which will be repaid through the sums it recovers from Aleos each year."

Papers filed with Companies House show that City Parking has never turned over a profit. Its losses were £294,314 in 2007-08; £1,1583,125 in 2008-09; £911,525 in 2009-10 and £1,283,261 in 2010-11.

The main reason that the firm is in the red is repayments of a vast £45m loan it took out when it was created - and which has helped it revamp several multi-storey carparks.

One of the reasons why the council spun some of its old departments off in to arm's-length companies was to get access to such private loan funding.

Now, however, the repayments are driving its parking firm in to the red.

A council spokesman, defended the Aleo policy as it was originally conceived by Mr Purcell.

He said: "Setting up arms-length external organisations has generated one-off income of £160m for the council and they save us £23m every year.

"We will always look for ways to save money for the people of Glasgow."

City Parking is chaired by Councillor Paul Carey. He said: "It would be very short-sighted to suggest City Parking does not benefit the council. We are trading in a difficult market, but the parking operation would still have faced these challenges had it remained within the core part of the council.

"What wouldn't have been possible is the investment in infrastructure and facilities that City Parking has delivered, and which supports our long-term business plan.

"Up-front support from the council for reforms and restructuring will help us make savings and underpin our ability to deliver for the council and the taxpayer."

Mr Matheson personally ordered the £105,000 free parking initiative earlier this month – as part of a package to lure visitors back to Glasgow City Centre, where footfall has been dropping.

A council spokesman said: "The initiative has been promoted by the leader of the council in order to support retailers.

"The offer is similar to those made in previous years and is backed by the Chamber of Commerce.

"The anticipated cost is £105,000 which will be met from the general fund."

The SNP, however, is questioning the move.

Some retailers, it is claimed, would have preferred to see a free parking initiative in the tough months of January and February, not during the Christmas rush.

Mr Hendry said: "Councillor Matheson seems to have blindly signed a blank cheque on behalf of Glasgow residents to pay for free parking for people living outwith Glasgow at the very time such a gesture will have the least impact.

"If the Leader of the Council was to show some vision he could have looked at timing this offer to evenings or the New Year when retailers and Glasgow's economy would benefit the most.

"This looks like another case where Glasgow's residents and retailers are being failed by a leader lacking in vision or substance."

Effectively the council has rented all the parking spaces in City Parking's carparks - the firm will be paid whether the spaces are filled or not.